by Isaac Asimov
'Silly even t' think o' that. The Aresopolis port is just ruins. They haven't a ship t' their names.'
Again silence. Then Allen spoke in a low, tense voice, 'What are you waiting for? What's that look on your face for?"
'I'm waiting f'r y* t' admit y'r domned machines have failed y' in the fairest emairgency we've had t' meet.'
'Admitted,' snarled the Earthman.
'Good! And now it's up t' me t' show y' what human ingenuity can do.' He handed a sheet of paper to his brother, 'There's a copy of the message I sent Vincent.'
Allen looked long at his brother and slowly read the pencilled scribbling.
'Will deliver all we have on hand in thirty-six hours. Hope it will keep you going the few days until we can get a real shipment out. Things are a little rough out here.'
'How are you going to do it?' demanded Allen, upon finishing.
'I'm trying to show y',' answered George, and Allen realized for the first time that they had left Central and were out in the caverns.
George led the way for five minutes and stopped before an object bulking blackly in the dimness. He turned on the section lights and said, 'Sand truck!'
The sand truck was not an imposing object. With the low driving car in front and the three squat, open-topped freight-cars behind it, presented a picture of obsolete decrepitude. Fifteen years ago, it had been relegated to the dust-heap by the sand-sleds and rocket-freights.
The Ganymedan was speaking, 'Checked it an hour ago, m'self, and 'tis still in wairking order. It has shielded bearings, air conditioning unit f'r the driving car and an intairnal combustion engine.'
The other looked up sharply. There was an expression of distaste on his face. 'You mean it burns chemical fuel.'
'Yup! Gas'line. That's why I like it. Reminds me o' Ganymede. On Gannie, I had a gas engine that -'
'But wait a while. We haven't any of that gasoline.'
'No, rackon not. But we got lots o' liquid hydrocarbons round the place. How about Solvent D? That's mostly octane. We've got tanks o' it.'
Allen said, 'That's so; - but the truck holds only two.'
'I know it. I'm one.'
'And I'm the other.'
George grunted, 'I rackond y'd say that - but this isn't going t' be a push-button machine job. Rackon y'r up t' it - Airth-man?'
'I reckon I am - Gannie.'
The sun had been up some two hours before the sand-truck's engine whirred into life, but outside, the murk had become, if anything, thicker.
The main driveway within the caverns was ahum with activity. Grotesque figures with eyes peering through the thick glass of improvised air-helmets stepped back as the truck's broad, sand-adapted wheels began their slow turn. The three cars behind had been piled high with purple blooms, canvas covers had been thrown over them and bound down tightly - and now the signal was given to open the doors.
The lever was jerked downwards and the double doors separated with sand-clogged protests. Through a gray whirl of inblown sand, the truck made its way outwards, and behind it sand-coated figures brushed at their air-helmets and closed the doors again.
George Carter, inured by long Ganymedan custom, met the sudden gravity change as they left the protective Gravitor fields of the caverns, with a single long-drawn breath. His hands held steady upon the wheels. His Terrestrial brother, however, was in far different condition. The hard nauseating knot into which his stomach tied itself loosened only very gradually, and it was a long time before his irregular stertorous breathing approached anything like normality again.
And throughout, the Earthman was conscious of the other's side-long glance and of just a trace of a smile about the other's lips.
It was enough to keep the slightest moan from issuing forth, though his abdominal muscles cramped and icy perspiration bathed his face.
The miles clicked off slowly, but the illusion of motionless-ness was almost as complete as that in space. The surroundings were gray - uniform, monotonous and unvarying. The noise of the engine was a harsh purr and the clicking of the air-purifier behind like a drowsy tick. Occasionally, there was an especially strong gust of wind, and a patter of sand dashed against the window with a million tiny, separate pings.
George kept his eye strictly upon the compass before him. The silence was almost oppressive.
And then the Ganymedan swivelled his head, and growled, 'What's wrong with the domned vent'lator?'
Allen squeezed upward, head against the low top, and then turned back, pale-faced, 'It's stopped.'
'It'll be hours 'fore the storm's over. We've got t' have air till then. Crawl in back there and start it again.' His voice was flat and final.
'Here,' he said, as the other crawled over his shoulder into the back of the car. 'Here's the tool-kit. Y've got 'bout twenty minutes 'fore the air gets too foul t' breathe. 'Tis pretty bad now.'
The clouds of sand hemmed in closer and the dim yellow light above George's head dispelled only partially the darkness within.
There was the sound of scrambling from behind him and then Allen's voice, 'Damn this rope. What's it doing here?' There was a hammering and then a disgusted curse.
This thing is choked with rust.'
'Anything else wrong?' called out the Ganymedan.
'Don't know. Wait till I clear it out.' More hammering and an almost continuous harsh, scraping sound followed.
Allen backed into his seat once more. His face dripped rusty perspiration and a swab with the back of an equally damp, rust-covered hand did it no good.
'The pump is leaking like a punctured kettle, now that the rust's been knocked loose. I've got it going at top speed, but the only thing between it and a total breakdown is a prayer.'
'Start praying,' said George, bruskly. 'Pray for a button to push.'
The Earthman frowned, and stared ahead in sullen silence.
At four in the afternoon, the Ganymedan drawed, 'Air's beginning t' thin out, looks like.'
Allen snapped to alertness. The air was foul and humid within. The ventilator behind swished sibilantly between each click and the clicks were spacing themselves further apart. It wouldn't hold out much longer now.
'How much ground have we covered?'
' 'Bout a thaird o' the distance,' was the reply. 'How 'r y' holding out?'
'Well enough,' Allen snapped back. He retired once more into his shell.
Night came and the first brilliant stars of a Martian night peeped out when with a last futile and long-sustained swi-i-is-s-sh, the ventilator died.
'Domn!' said George. 'I can't breathe this soup any longer, anyway. Open the windows.'
The keenly cold Martian wind swept in and with it the last traces of sand. George coughed as he pulled his woolen cap over his ears and turned on the heaters.
'Y' can still taste the grit.'
Allen looked wistfully up into the skies, 'There's Earth -with the moon hanging right onto her tail.'
'Airth?' repeated George with fine contempt. His finger pointed horizonwards, 'There's good old Jupe for y'.'
And throwing back his head, he sang in a full-throated baritone:
When the golden orb o' love Shines down from the skies above, Then my spirit longs to go To that happy land I know, Back f good, old Ganyme-e-e-e-e-ede.'
The last note quavered and broke, and quavered and broke again and still again in an ever increasing rapidity of tempo until its vibrating ululation pierced the air about ear-shatter-ingly.
Allen stared at his brother wide-eyed, 'How did you do that?'
George grinned, 'That's the Gannie quaver. Didn't y' ever hear it before?'
The Earthman shook his head, 'I've heard of it, but that's all.'
The other became a bit more cordial, 'Well, o' course y' can only do it in a thin atmosphere. Y' should hear me on Gannie. I c'd shake y' right off y'r chair when I'm going good. Here! Wait till I gulp down some coffee, and then I'll sing y' vairse twenty-four o' the "Ballad o' Ganymede."'
He took a deep breath
:
'There's a fair-haired maid I love
Standing in the light o' Jove And she's waiting there for me-e-e-e-e.
Then-'
Allen grasped him by the arm and shook him. The Gany-medan choked into silence.
'What's the matter?' he asked sharply.
'There was a thumping sound on the roof just a second ago. There's something up there.'
George stared upwards, 'Grab the wheel. I'll go up.' Allen shook his head, 'I'm going myself. I wouldn't trust myself running this primitive contraption.'
He was out on the running board the next instant.
'Keep her going,' he shouted, and threw one foot.up onto the roof.
He froze in that position when he became aware of two yellow slits of eyes staring hard into his. It took not more than a second for him to realize that he was face to face with a keazel, a situation which for discomfort is about on a par with the discovery of a rattlesnake in one's bed back on Earth.
There was little time for mental comparisons of his position with Earth predicaments, however, for the keazel lunged forward, its poisonous fangs agleam in the starlight.
Allen ducked desperately and lost his grip. He hit the sand with a slow-motion thud and the cold, scaly body of the Martian reptile was upon him.
The Earthman's reaction was almost instinctive. His hand shot out and clamped down hard upon the creature's narrow muzzle.
In that position, beast and man stiffened into breathless statuary. The man was trembling and within him his heart pounded away with hard rapidity. He scarcely dared move. In the unaccustomed Martian gravity, he found he could not judge the movements of his limbs. Muscles knotted almost of their own accord and legs swung when they ought not to.
He tried to lie still - and think.
The keazel squirmed, and from its lips, clamped shut by earth muscles, issued a tremendous whine. Allen's hand grew slick with perspiration and he could feel the beast's muzzle turn a bit within his palm. He clamped harder, panic-stricken. Physically, the keazel was no match for an Earthman, even a tired, frightened, gravity-unaccustomed Earthman - but one bite, anywhere, was all that was needed.
The keazel jerked suddenly; its back humped and its legs threshed. Allen held on with both hands and could not let go. He had neither gun or knife. There was no rock on the level desert sands to crack its skull against. The sand-truck had long since disappeared into the Martian night, and he was alone -alone with a keazel.
In desperation, he twisted. The keazel's head bent. He could hear its breath whistling forth harshly - and again there was that low whine.
Allen writhed above it and clamped knees down upon its cold, scaly abdomen. He twisted the head, further and further. The keazel fought desperately, but Allen's Earthly biceps maintained their hold. He could almost sense the beast's agony in the last stages, when he called up all his strength, - and something snapped.
And the beast lay still.
He rose to his feet, half-sobbing. The Martin night wind knifed into him and the perspiration froze on his body. He was alone in the desert.
Reaction set in. There was an intense buzzing in his ears. He found it difficult to stand. The wind was biting - but somehow he didn't feel it any more.
The buzzing in his ears resolved itself into a voice - a voice calling weirdly through the Martian wind.
'All'n, where are y'? Domn y', y' tanderfoot, where are y'? All'n! All'n!'
New life swept into the Earthman. He tossed the keazel's carcass onto his shoulders and staggered on towards the voice.
'Here I am, G-Gannie. Right here.'
He stumbled blindly into his brother's arms.
George began harshly, 'Y' blasted Airthman, can't y' even keep y'r footing on a sandtruck moving at ten miles per? Y' might've -'
His voice died away in a semi-gurgle.
Allen said tiredly, 'There was a keazel on the roof. He knocked me off. Here, put it somewhere. There's a hundred dollar bonus for every keazel skin brought in to Aresopolis.'
He had no clear recollection of anything for the next half hour. When things straightened out, he was in the truck again with the taste of warm coffee in his mouth. The engine was rumbling once more and the pleasant warmth of the heaters surrounded him.
George sat next to him silently, eyes fixed on the desert ahead. But once in a while, he cleared his throat and shot a lightning glance at his brother. There was a queer look in his eyes.
Allen said, 'Listen, I've got to keep awake - and you look half dead yourself - so how about teaching me that "Gannie quaver" of yours. That's bound to wake the dead.'
The Ganymedan stared even harder and then said gruffly, 'Sure, watch m' Adam's apple while I do 't again.'
The sun was half-way to zenith when they reached the canal.
An hour before dawn there had come the crackling sound of hoarfrost beneath the heavy wheels and that signified the end of the desert area and the approach of the canal oasis. With the rising of the sun, the crackling disappeared and the softening mud underneath slowed the sand-adapted truck. The pathetic clumps of gray-green scrub that dotted the flat landscape were the first variant to eternal red sand since the two had started on their journey.
And then Allen had learned forward and grasped his brother by the arm, 'Look, there's the canal itself right ahead.'
The 'canal' - a small tributary of the mighty Jefferson Canal - contained a mere trickle of water at this season of the year. A dirty winding line of dampness, it was, and little more. Surrounding it on both sides were the boggy areas of black mud that were to fill up into a rushing ice-cold current an Earth-year hence.
The sand-truck nosed gingerly down the gentle slope, weaving a tortuous path among the sparsely-strewn boulders brought down by the spring's torrents and left there as the sinking waters receded.
It slopped through the mud and splashed clumsily through the puddles. It jounced noisily over rocks, muddied itself past the hubs as it made its way through the murky mid-stream channel and then settled itself for the upward pull out.
And then, with a suddenness that tossed the two drivers out of their seats, it sideslipped, made one futile effort to proceed onwards and thereafter refused to budge.
The brothers scrambled out and surveyed the situation. George swore lustily, voice more thickly accented than ever.
'B' Jupe 'n' domn, we're in a pickled situation f'r fair. 'Tis wallowing in the mud there like a blasted pig.'
Allen shoved his hair back wearily, 'Well, don't stand there looking at it. We're still a hundred miles or better from Areso-polis. We've got to get it out of there.'
'Sure, but how?' His imprecations dropped to sibilant breathings as he reached into the truck for the coil of rope in the back. He looked at it doubtfully.
'Y' get in here, All'n, and when I pull, press down with y'r foot on that pedal.'
He was tying the rope to the front axle even as he spoke. He played it out behind him as he slogged out through ankledeep mud, and stretched it taut.
'All right, now, give I' he yelled. His face turned purple with effort as his back muscles ridged. Allen, within the car, pressed the indicated pedal to the floor, heard a loud roar from the engine and a spinning whir from the back wheels. The truck heaved once, and then sank back.
''Tis no use,' George called. 'I can't get a footing. If the ground were dry, I c'd do it.'
'If the ground were dry, we wouldn't be stuck,' retorted Allen. 'Here, give me that rope.'
'D y' think y' can do it, if / can't?' came the enraged cry, but the other had already left the car.
Allen had spied the large, deep-bedded boulder from the truck, and it was with relief that he found it to be within reaching distance of the rope. He pulled it taut and tossed its free end about the boulder. Knotting it clumsily, he pulled, and it held.
His brother leaned out of the car window, as he made his way, back, with one lumped Ganymedan fist agitating the air.
'Hi, y' nitwit. What're y' doing? D' y' ex
pect that overgrown rock t' pull us out?'
'Shut up,' yelled back Allen, 'and feed her the gas when I pull.'
He paused midway between boulder and truck and seized the rope.
'Give!' he shouted in his turn, and with a sudden jerk pulled the rope toward him with both hands.
The truck moved; its wheels caught hold. For a moment it hesitated with the engine blasting ahead full speed, and George's hands trembling upon the wheel. And then it went over. And almost simultaneously, the boulder at the other end of the taut rope lifted out of the mud with a liquid smacking sound and went over on its side.
Allen slipped the noose off it and ran for the truck.
'Keep her going,' he shouted, and hopped onto the running board, rope trailing.
'How did y' do that?' asked George, eyes round with awe.
'I haven't got the energy to explain it now. When we get to Aresopolis and after we've had a good sleep, I'll draw the triangle of forces for you, and show you what happened. No muscles were involved. Don't look at me as if I were Hercules.'
George withdrew his gaze with an effort, 'Triangle o' forces, is it? I never heard o' it, but if that's what it c'n do, education's a great thing.'
'Comet-gas! Is any coffee left?' He stared at the last thermos-bottle, shook it near his ear dolefully, and said, 'Oh, well, let's practice the quaver. It's almost as good and I've practically got it perfected.'
He yawned prodigiously, 'Will we make it by nightfall?'
'Maybe!'
The canal was behind them now.
The reddening sun was lowering itself slowly behind the Southern Range. The, Southern Range is one of the two 'mountain chains' left on Mars. It is a region of hills; ancient, time-worn, eroded hills behind which lies Aresopolis.
It possesses the only scenery worth mentioning on all Mars and also the golden attribute of being able, through the up-drafts along its sides to suck an occasional rain out of the desiccated Martian atmosphere.
Ordinarily, perhaps, a pair from Earth and Ganymede might have idled through this picturesque area, but this was definitely not the case with the Carter twins.